Competition is a very aggressive experience and signing up to fight another human being will probably be one of the most difficult things you do.
That’s why competition preparedness is so important If it’s your first time competing, there isn’t too much you can do to prepare you for the feeling you get when you’re mat side about to be summoned by the referee. If you’ve dabbled with the works of Ryan Holiday you’ll know that the one thing we can do is “identify and separate matters so that we can say clearly to ourselves which are externals not under our control, and which have to do with the choices we actually control”, in more simple terms, control the controllables.
You’ll find exactly how to do this in our latest video release aka 27 minutes of pure competition tested knowledge you don’t wanna miss. You know it’s gonna be good when there’s a white board involved.
Please enjoy the video below where Keenan breaks down the strategy we use at Legion to make ourselves and our students feel 100% ready when stepping on the mat.
The 3 Phases Rule of Competition Preparedness.
In this video, Keenan separates competition preparedness into 3 phases; physical, mental and physical.
PHYSICAL: one of the most important and most controllable factors. As Keenan likes to say “you don’t want to go in there like a bag of meat”, you wanna step on that mat like a solid unit of ultimate cardio capacity. YET 90% of people don’t take this step seriously enough. If you’ve competed before, you’ll know that the post tournament DOMS almost never feel like the post training DOMS which means you’ll work harder in a tournament than you do in training, therefore you gotta train harder. Keenan will give you the steps as to how to do this.
MENTAL: the mental aspect is just as important as the physical (if not more important) and although it’s more difficult to control, through the power of affirmations, deliberate practice, pure grit and some of Keenan’s additional points, you’ll learn how to reprogram your brain so that it works with you rather than against you. Make sure to REALLY work on this aspect or else your competition experience will be traumatic. I repeat, it will be traumatic.
TECHNICAL: It’s helpful to mentally know what the scoreboard looks like so although you may not want to verbally let your training partners know when you’ve scored points on them like Keenan likes to do, be sure to make a mental note of it. Always assume the referee is your enemy, it’s important to know the rules, and of course don’t get DQ’d.
Don’t Make Excuses!
Even if, at the end of the day you cover every single aspect of the preparation plan, the win is never guaranteed. However, the beauty of competition is that it brings out the aspects of yourself and of your jiu jitsu that you need to work on. Identify them, evaluate them and find the solution to them.
Prepare for jiu jitsu tournaments or escape the stressors of daily life through rolling with some of the highest level athletes at Legion HQ.
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